This thesis is an analysis on the dual issues of loyalty to the Union and the support of slavery that existed within Maryland during the American Civil War. In the early stages of the conflict, Maryland Unionists proclaimed loyalty both to the Union and to slavery. This group, described as Conservative Unionists, proclaimed that secession was foolish because the United States Constitution, and other national legislation already had secured slaveholding rights. Conservative Unionists looked upon secessionist Southerners as traitors not only to the Union but also to slavery itself, because in the act of secession, Southerners had destroyed the very foundations that guarded slavery. The Conservative Unionists viewpoint sustained Marylanders who believed that their antebellum social order, which relied on slavery, could withstand the onslaught of the Civil War. However, the shift in the national war aims, from one of reunion to one that included emancipation, forced Conservative Unionists to recognize the contradictions in their beliefs. Ultimately, due to the pressures from the presence of Union soldiers in Maryland, federal anti-slavery legislation, and the turmoil of war, Conservative Unionists arguments fell apart as a viable movement.
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